Obama the Jobs Hypocrite

Here is a bit of information on the jobs front that may be of interest to Blogcritics readers. General Electric (GE) chief executive officer Jeffery Immelt, who has a history with President Barack Hussein Obama (he’s visited the White House at least 16 times, meeting with Obama on at least five occasions), was appointed chairman of the new President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. What’s interesting is that he has presided over a corporation that has seen a steady US job decline since 2005. According to GE’s Web site, in 2005, GE employed 160,000 US employees, but by 2009 that fell to 138,000.

On the “not” jobs related front, GE faced hefty fines from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2009 and 2010. The SEC, in 2010, said four GE subsidiaries, “Made illegal kickback payments in the form of cash, computer equipment, medical supplies and services to the Iraq Health Ministry or the Iraqi Oil Ministry in order to obtain valuable contracts under the UN Oil-for-Food program.” GE owned two of the subsidiaries involved in the scandal before the US-Iraq war began in 2003, and acquired two other companies after Saddam’s regime was toppled.

GE is supposed to be creating the jobs of tomorrow, but it seems that most of the jobs of tomorrow will not be located in the US. As the administration struggles to get businesses to create jobs at home, GE has been busy sending them abroad. Since Immelt took over in 2001, GE has shed 34,000 jobs in the US, according to its most recent annual filing with the SEC. But it’s added 25,000 jobs overseas. At the end of 2009, GE employed 36,000 more people abroad than it did in the US. In 2000, it was nearly the opposite. The last GE light bulb factory in the US closed in September, 2010. The transition to the new CFL light bulbs was supposed to create a whole bunch of those green jobs that Barack Obama keeps talking about, but that did not happen. Rather than setting off a boom in the US, CFLs are manufactured almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.

Foreign work has proven lucrative to GE. In 2007, it derived half of its global sales from work abroad. In 2009, that share increased to 54 percent, while US sales have shrunk. And rather than invest in the US, GE has decided to look abroad. In 2008 and 2009, GE decided to reinvest prior-year earnings outside the US “indefinitely.”

In his announcement on January 21, 2012 appointing Immelt as chairman, Obama said, “Jeff is somebody who brings a wealth of experience to the table. He is one of the nation’s most respected and admired business leaders, and that’s a reputation he earned over 10 years at the helm of this company.”

But in light of GE’s and Immelt’s recent jobs and financial ethics performances, another opinion has been offered. Tom Borelli, director of the Free Enterprise Project at the National Center for Public Policy Research, believes Immelt was a horrible choice to be a presidential adviser on job growth. “You couldn’t find a worse CEO to put on a jobs and economics panel, in terms of jobs and ethics – two SEC fines in the last two years. He is the poster child for a failed CEO, and the GE board is the poster child of a failed board for keeping him around.” He also said, “What kind of perception does that create if the president of the United States would appoint someone with two SEC fines that happened during his term in office? Doesn’t he [Obama] do background checks?”

In the Oh, dear department, companies like GE say good jobs will come from lower taxes and less regulation. Corporate executives say lower corporate taxes will lead to job creation as businesses would focus their cash on expansion. And GE is sitting on $79 billion in cash, tops worldwide among non-financial publicly-traded companies, while the Obama administration has been critical of corporate cash-hoarding.

So what does all of this mean? Obama the hypocrite strikes again. He talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk, as evidenced by the Immelt appointment. This article is just a little something for all you Kool-Aid drinkers to think about.

If Obama wrote an executive order forcing GE to hire American workers, I’m sure Warren would decry that as unwarranted government interference with private commerce.

There is a stated reason why Immelt was appointed, and it seems pretty sound to me. An unstated reason is that Immelt knows exactly why GE has chosen increasingly to invest outside the US, and is in a great position to let the president know what those reasons are and what needs to be done to reverse the trend.

Think of it as analogous to hiring a reformed burglar as a home security consultant.

http://jetsgayheadlinenews-jet.blogspot.com/ Jet Gardner

You’re slipping Warren, Hussein didn’t make it into the article until the 2nd sentence.

I hearby pledge that this will be the last comment on any of this fool’s articles, nor will I even bother to read them.

The more you pay attention to these fools, the more they feel validated.

“The moving finger writes… and having writ moves on…”

I leave you with that thought Warren…

…and a moving finger.

Kyle Hunter

We’ll call it the “Jet’s Hussein Moving Finger Boycott!” I love that line by the way about the moving finger-lol

Clavos

Congratulations, Warren!

Igor

The moving finger writes,
and having writ moves on.
Nor all your piety or wit
Shall call it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

Omar Khayam

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/IanMayfield Dr Hussein Dreadful

Sadly for Warren, Clav, I have a policy of boycotting all boycotts.

http://rwno.limewebs.com Warren Beatty

Re: comment # 1, Dr. Dreadful, if you really believe what you wrote then you are a Kool-Ade drinker. FWIW, you win the prize for the most twisted and tortured “logic.”

Re: comment # 5, Igor, I thank you for the Omar Khayam quote, as many readers would have no idea from where the “moving finger” to which Jet refers comes.

Glenn Contrarian

Warren –

You apparently really didn’t understand what Doc meant, which was no matter what Obama does or doesn’t do, you’ll say it was wrong. If tomorrow he somehow cured cancer, invented cheap and plentiful fusion, and brought world peace, you’d still find a way to claim that it was all part of some huge grab for political power.

You may or may not be racially prejudiced – I can’t prove one way or another on that particular issue – but you are certainly prejudiced against Obama. Most people here have found good and bad things about every president, but when someone has only bad to say, it’s because that person doesn’t have enough heart to look past his own political prejudice.

You say, “If tomorrow he [Obama] somehow cured cancer, invented cheap and plentiful fusion, and brought world peace, you’d still find a way to claim that it was all part of some huge grab for political power.” IF Obama indeed did those things, I would be among the first to praise him..However, if he did it as a demonstrable power grab, I would condemn him. Doing wonderful things and a political power grab are two different things.

You say, “Most people here have found good and bad things about every president, but when someone has only bad to say, it’s because that person doesn’t have enough heart to look past his own political prejudice.” You are correct – I am politially prejudiced. I have seen nothing, based on what Obama has done so far, for which to praise him. Does it take “heart” to ignore his running up the debt, running deficits, continuing to cling to his green energy ideas, and penalizing success and hard work? Concerning Obama’s good things, can you point to ONE thing that will, in the long run, benefit this country? And your opinion doesn’t count.

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/IanMayfield Dr Hussein Dreadful

Warren, rather than simply throw out an ad hominem, why don’t you explain either (a) exactly how I was employing tortured logic (b) why Obama’s thinking in appointing Immelt can’t possibly have been what I surmised, or at least (c) what flavor Kool-Aid you think I’ve been drinking?

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/IanMayfield Dr Hussein Dreadful

Got to give you credit, Warren: your #9 is very slick. In a single comment, you give yourself a preemptive “out” both to interpret anything Obama does, however altruistic, as a power grab, and to discount anything Glenn says as mere opinion.

Unfortunately I don’t know Clavos well enough yet to say whether his comment-4 was sarcasm or not, and it’s even more vague whether he is congratulating him on his article or the Doctor’s proposed job as a consultant, or Jet’s “moving finger” boycott?

I have figured out Warren in the short time I’ve been reading his “articles” to know he’s definately delusional or do I have that wrong too?

Kyle Hussein Hunter

This isn’t like a Beetlejuice movie where if we write Saddam Hussein’s name enough times we will resurrect him is it?

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/IanMayfield Dr Hussein Dreadful

@ #13: It’s the boycott, Kyle.

Igor

I dislike Immelt, too, if for no other reason than being Jack Welch’s protege, an opportunistic brute who made GE into one of the USAs worst corporate citizens, reducing their net tax liability to zero while producing record profits as well as immense bonuses to Welch and company. But, looking around I see a real dearth of good candidates for appointment to government posts. It was that way under Bush, too.

It seems that our modern business executives are a low bunch, who cannot take on the obligations of government in good faith when they are appointed, but rather see their government service as a chance to enrich their business associates and thus assure themselves highly remunerative jobs upon leaving service.

Obama has a real problem, as did Bush before him, with finding good people to do The Governments Business without betraying the public trust they are given in order to promote private interests.

Clavos

It’s Khayyám, (two Ys) gentlemen.

For the record, the quoted verse is from the Rubaiyat, a selection of quatrains (rubaiyat means quatrains) selected and loosely translated in the 19th century by Englishman Edward Fitzgerald, for which reason it is Khayyám’s best known work in the West. Khayyám was Persian and lived from 1048 to 1131.

Igor

No one surpasses Clavos in spelling Persian names.

Ah, but my Computations, People say,
Reduce the Year to better reckoning?—Nay,
’Twas only striking from the Calendar
Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday.

Re: comment # 10, Dr. Dreadful, (a) you say, “Think of it as analogous to hiring a reformed burglar as a home security consultant. :-)” Tortured “logic.”
(b) ??? (c) I believe it was grape “Flavor-Ade.”

Re: comment # 11, Dr. Dreadful, I could not help but notice that your list of Obama accomplishments is rather short – in fact, it’s non-existent. And your “poisioning the well” remark is not even a good try at refutation.

20-I’m not sure what a “complement” is, but I would not give you one if I had it.

Your last sentence would appear to be admitting you’re delusional and seem to be proud of it being documented?

Of course it’s been a long time since I’ve tried to diagram 5th grade level sentences.

A shame actually, the comments section of this string almost swerved back into being intelligent until comment-20

pity really

Kyle Hussein Hunter

I have been informed that you ment “compliment” which clarifies but confuses consididering the definition of complement.

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/IanMayfield Dr Hussein Dreadful

(b) ???

It wasn’t a difficult question, Warren. Just explain to us why one reason for Obama’s appointment of Immelt can’t have been because Immelt might have some insights into why GE and other American companies are choosing to invest outside the US.

I could not help but notice that your list of Obama accomplishments is rather short – in fact, it’s non-existent.

Oh, I’m sorry. I’d forgotten that I was the White House press secretary. I must email my boss and remind him to fire me.

And your “poisioning the well” remark is not even a good try at refutation.

How about my link, which demonstrates exactly what you were doing?

Clavos

No one surpasses Clavos in spelling Persian names.

Least of all you, apparently.

http://rwno.limewebs.com Warren Beatty

Re: comment # 21, Kyle Hussein, I MEANT “complement.” Please go to: rwno.limewebs.com (no www), enter my world, then hover over “Other Services.” In the extreme lower right you will see “Typical Liberals.” Click on it and I think you will see why I used the word “complement.”

http://cinemasentries.com/ El Bicho

“Documented truth hurts, doesn’t it.”

Like the documented truth that there’s a border fence if though you claim there isn’t

zingzing

double standard pt 5, eb.

Glenn Contrarian

Warren –

IF Obama indeed did [cure cancer, etc.], I would be among the first to praise him..However, if he did it as a demonstrable power grab, I would condemn him.

Gee, does anyone else here have a strong suspicion of what your opinion would be regardless of what happened?

Of the eleven states in which Republicans came into power in 2010 – Alabama, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – five were among the seven states that lost more than 2.5 percent of their workforce from December 2010 to December 2011. The remaining 42 states lost an average 0.5 percent (there is no data for Mississippi).

Overall, these 11 states were responsible for 40 percent of the total state and local public sector job losses in 2011. Add to these Texas, which because of its large size is responsible for 31 percent of the total at the state and local level. Taken together, these 12 red states drove over 70 percent of the total losses. The rest of the states suffered much smaller losses or even slight gains.

…

“There could have been fewer layoffs than there were,” said Mark Price, an economist based in Pennsylvania. “They could have avoided this.” As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has found, many of these newly GOP-dominated states, including North Carolina, cut corporate taxes, or cut taxes on high-income earners, including Maine and Ohio. Wisconsin did both.

Kyle Hussein Hunter

Glenn, you know he’ll find a tea party website to refute your facts.

Kyle Hussein Hunter

Warren’s brain never admits it got lost-it just changes its mind where it wanted to go.